The Lorax Inspired Cupcakes

My Lorax inspired cupcakes

I just love how I can plan on something. . . then something new happens. . .and I have to change my plans. I always joke that, "Man makes his plans. . . and God laughs!" I had my next few blogs planned out of previous cupcakes I made. . . but since I am a substitute teacher, and it is flu season, I got the phone call a lot this week. I knew some of the classes were doing some Dr. Seuss themed things since his "birthday" is tomorrow. I thought how great would it be to do a cupcake of Seussical proportions. . .My inspiration was The Lorax. Now I have not seen the new version, but that drawing of him is where I got my motivation. I obviously cannot share them with the children at school, but I can share with the teachers and my own children can share in the fun of the cupcakes.

Polaner's All Fruit

I made these an orange flavor, both in the cupcake and in the icing. I started with my favorite white cake recipe as my base and I made a basic buttercream and used orange extract and orange juice instead of vanilla and milk. I needed to make it a little different so I could make it orange flavored. You could also use a white, yellow or lemon cake mix and do the same things. I will post the recipe at the end. What I did was add orange extract to my cupcake recipe and then I added about 1/4 cups of orange jelly (I used Polaner's All Fruit). You could most definitely do this to a cake mix if you didn't want to make the cake from scratch.

I found these fabulous eyes at Walmart, and I thought they would be perfect for the eyes for the Lorax inspired cupcake. The package I bought was the Large size. It had 24 in the package for $3.50 .

 

Candy Eyeballs

I made a double batch of my buttercream icing and tinted most of it orange. I reserved about 1 cup and tinted it yellow. I flavored it all orange. For a basic buttercream that you want to pipe on to cupcakes (single recipe)--1 stick of butter, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 TBSP liquid (I usually use milk, but for this today I used OJ) and 1 TSP of vanilla (today I used orange extract).

I used the #21 tip to pipe the orange on to the cupcake. What is great about this is that it can be a little "messy." I just piped it on. You could also spread it onto the cupcake and then just put a few strategically placed "elongated star shape" onto it. I pretty much did a big squiggle all over it, and then a few "elongated stars" to make him look "hairy"

The base of the Lorax cupcakes

The next step was to put the eyebrows and mustache on the fella. I tinted this icing yellow. I used the #32 tip (it is a little broader). It is very similar to the "shell" design that you might make in cake decorating. I did the same thing for his mustache.

The Lorax with eyebrows and mustache

Originally I didn't have the nose on, and it was just missing something. I remember that I had some orange M & Ms left from a previous project, so I thought those would make the perfect nose. I got these at the candy store at the mall. They have a variety of colors.

The Lorax with his nose.

My final step was to put on those fabulous candy eyes. I think they turned out SUPER CUTE! And they had some pretty good flavor!

Packaged up and ready for some of the teachers at school

Now for my orange cupcake recipe. I have made a "orange dreamy" cupcake before and this is slightly different.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 TSP vanilla
1 1/2 TSP orange extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 3/4 TSP baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange jelly (Polaner's All Fruit)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar together. Add the eggs in one at a time. Add the flavorings (vanilla and the orange). Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture, slowly add in the milk. Fold in the orange jelly and tint the batter if desired. This make about 18 cupcakes for me. Bake for about 20 minutes.

After cooling, I decorated those cupcakes.

I thought they were super cute, and that they tasted quite nicely too. It was fun to do and fun to eat. I will be honest, this is one of my favorite "looking" cupcakes. I really like my tie-dyed ones too, but I think these. . . take the cake! (Yes the pun was intended!)

If you want my recipes/ideas for my Tie-dyed cupcakes or any of my others, you can check my archives or follow any of the highlighted words (those are links to other sites or blogs).